1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electromechanical transducer element, a liquid droplet discharge head, and an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is known a liquid droplet discharge device which incorporates a liquid droplet discharge head, the liquid droplet discharge head including nozzles to discharge droplets of ink (liquid for image formation), a liquid chamber in communication with the nozzles, and a pressure generation unit to generate pressure in the ink in the liquid chamber. It is also known that an example of the pressure generation unit is one in which a piezoelectric electromechanical transducer element having an electromechanical transducer film of a piezoelectric material is disposed on a diaphragm that forms a part of a wall surface of a liquid chamber.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2008-192868 discloses a configuration of an electromechanical transducer element in which a lower electrode, an electromechanical transducer film having a perovskite crystal structure such as lead zirconate titanate (PZT), and an upper electrode are laminated. Also disclosed is that, in the electromechanical transducer film having the perovskite crystal structure, increasing (100) plane crystal orientation (crystal orientation ratio 80% or greater), aligning spontaneous polarization axis directions, and forming an electric field in the aligned direction allows the amount of distortion of the electromechanical transducer element due to the piezoelectric effect thereof to be increased.
However, it is confirmed that, even in the electromechanical transducer element disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2008-192868, there may be a case where it is difficult to provide a sufficient amount of distortion and the electromechanical transducer element does not fully function as a stable and efficient electromechanical transducer.